(Other Shady Shorteners Are Available. Annoyingly.)
Ah, Bitly. The link shortener of choice for people who love mystery. What’s behind that cryptic “bit.ly/3uZxYqF”? A cat video? A phishing site? Malware in a trench coat? No one knows. Not your reader, not the inbox algorithm, and definitely not the spam filter that’s just tossed your beautifully crafted email straight into the bin.
If you’re sending marketing emails (especially from a shiny new domain), using generic URL shorteners like Bitly, TinyURL or Rebrandly is like turning up to a job interview wearing a ski mask. You might have something great to say, but no one’s going to trust you enough to find out.
Why Link Shorteners Raise Red Flags
Spam filters, the grumpy gatekeepers of inboxes everywhere, have seen things. And most of those things came wrapped in shortened URLs. Because let’s be honest, link shorteners are the weapon of choice for spammers, scammers and bored hackers with too much time.
When you use a generic URL shortener:
- You’re sharing reputation with everyone else using that service
- Some inboxes (looking at you, Outlook) literally filter out emails just for having them
- They hide the destination, which filters hate even more than your readers do
It’s guilt by association. Even if your link leads to the fluffiest, most wholesome puppy adoption site in the world, if it looks shady, it’s toast.
Reputation: Yours vs Theirs
Deliverability is all about trust. Not just “did you pass SPF and DKIM?” trust, but “do you act like a real business or a spammy bot farm?” trust.
When your links point to a Bitly domain, you’re effectively borrowing their reputation. Which would be fine if Bitly hadn’t already been blacklisted more times than a dodgy payday loan site.
Worse still, some security gateways actively rewrite short links to scan them. This can break tracking, confuse analytics or trigger even more aggressive filtering.
So, What Should You Use Instead?
Branded tracking links. That means using your own domain (or a clean subdomain) to track clicks. This tells inboxes:
- You own and control the link
- It’s not a redirect to something unknown
- You’re behaving like a legit sender who understands email hygiene
For example, instead of:
bit.ly/hire-fast-now
Use something like:
click.youragencyname.co.uk/hire-fast-now
Cleaner. Branded. Trustworthy. And it builds your reputation, not someone else’s.
(We’ll dig into how to set that up in the next blog, don’t worry.)
The Takeaway
If your email campaign is struggling to reach inboxes and you’re using generic link shorteners, well, you’ve probably found the problem.
Give your links a makeover. Make them look like they actually came from you. Because nothing screams “I don’t know what I’m doing” like a Bitly link in a cold email.
Want to Stay Out of Spam Folders for Good?
At Quinset, we don’t just moan about Bitly. We help recruitment agencies and savvy marketers build rock-solid deliverability. From smart warmups to branded tracking domains to full-blown DMARC reporting via Powermail, we’ve got your back.
Need help getting your email house in order? Let’s chat.
We help recruiters hit inboxes, not spam. You might not be using URL shorteners, but there are hundreds of other things that can kill yoou domain reputation and email deliverability. There’s a few ways things you can do…
- Check out our other blogs and spend some time learning
- Listen out for podcasts featuring the one and only email nerd, Ben Fielding, for more tips and insights
- Hire us to help you dominate email delivery
- Ignore us and keep living in Junk Hell
